How to Change the Color of Anything in Photoshop – Day 8

Change the Color of Anything With Two Decisions

Changing the color of an object is one of the most requested things Photoshop does, and the tool for it has been in the Adjustments panel the whole time. Hue/Saturation does not paint over a color; it finds a range of color and rotates it, which is why the result keeps every shadow, highlight and reflection intact.

The catch is that it finds that color everywhere. Almost all of the work in a convincing recolor is telling Photoshop where it is allowed to look.

Select First, Then Adjust

Take the Object Selection tool and click the thing you want to change. It has had significant AI upgrades and on a well-defined subject it is now a single click.

With that selection live, add a Hue/Saturation layer from the Adjustments panel. The selection becomes the layer’s mask automatically, so the adjustment is confined to the object before you have touched a slider. This is the same pattern as Day 6: make the selection, then create the layer.

Dial In the Exact Color With the Eyedropper

The dropdown at the top of the Properties panel defaults to Master, which affects every color at once. Switch it to whichever named range is closest — Yellows for an orange bus, say — and it narrows the target considerably.

Then do the step most people skip: take the eyedropper and click the actual pixels you want to change. Photoshop redefines the range around that precise color, and the sliders under the color bar at the bottom of the panel move to show it. A named range is an approximation; the eyedropper is the real thing.

Hue, Saturation and Lightness

Hue

Rotates the selected range around the color wheel. This is the actual recolor — orange to green, red to blue — and because it only shifts the hue, the tonal structure underneath survives untouched.

Saturation

How much of that color there is. Pulled all the way down, the object turns gray while everything else stays in color, which is a useful effect in its own right.

Lightness

Brightens or darkens the range. Handle it carefully: pushed far it flattens the object toward white or black and takes the material’s texture with it.

All three are live forever. Come back tomorrow, drag the hue slider, and the bus is a different color again.

Clean Up What the Color Range Caught by Mistake

Toggle the layer off and on and look at the whole frame, not just the object. Anything else sharing that hue — indicator lights, a wing mirror, trim — will have shifted too. That is not a mistake in the adjustment; it means the mask needs work.

1. Click the Layer Mask Thumbnail

   Not the adjustment thumbnail. Check for the white outline before you paint anything.

2. Set Up a Black Brush

   Press B, then D to reset the default colors and X until black is in the foreground. Right-click on the canvas to set size and hardness — high hardness for panel edges, softer where the change should fade out.

3. Paint Black Over Everything That Should Stay

   Black on the mask hides the adjustment there, letting the original color show through. Headlights, mirrors, the interior seen through the windows: paint them all back.

4. Toggle and Check Again

   Switch the layer on and off once more. This is the step that separates a recolor that reads as real from one that looks like a filter.

When You Do Not Need a Selection At All

Sometimes the color range is the selection. If the only green in a photograph is foliage, a Hue/Saturation layer targeting greens will only ever affect the foliage — no mask required.

Same with a clear sky and the blues. Add a layer, choose Blues, eyedropper the sky, and push saturation up for a brighter day. The rule of thumb: if the color you are targeting appears in exactly one place, skip the selection; if it appears in several, select first.

Colorize for a Blanket Color

The Colorize checkbox does something different from everything above. Instead of rotating existing colors, it discards them and paints one single hue across everything the mask allows, keeping only the underlying brightness.

1. Add a Hue/Saturation Layer and Tick Colorize

   The image immediately becomes monochrome in whatever hue is currently set.

2. Choose the Hue, Saturation and Lightness You Want

   With Colorize on, these three sliders define the color outright rather than shifting an existing one.

3. Mask It Where It Belongs

   Click the mask, take the Gradient tool with the black-to-white linear preset, and drag across the boundary — along a road, say — so the color fades in rather than stopping at a hard line.

Colorize is the minority case. For converting one color to another, the ordinary hue slider is more convincing every time, because it keeps the original color variation inside the object.

Where Recolors Give Themselves Away

The Color Exists Somewhere Else

By far the most common problem, and the reason to always check the whole frame after a change rather than just the object.

The Lightness Slider Went Too Far

Painted metal has specular highlights and fabric has shadow detail. Push lightness hard and both disappear, and the object starts to look like a flat cut-out.

The Saturation Is Higher Than Anything Else in the Photograph

A recolored object that is noticeably more vivid than its surroundings reads as fake even when the hue is perfect. Match the saturation to the rest of the scene.

Group the Layers and Compare

By the end there may be four separate Hue/Saturation layers doing four separate jobs. Shift-click them all and press Ctrl/Cmd + G to group them, then toggle the group’s eye icon for a clean before and after — and use the group’s opacity slider if the whole thing has gone slightly too far.

Try It on Something of Your Own

Download the sample image and recolor the bus, then find a photograph of your own with one dominant colored object and do the same. The eyedropper step and the mask cleanup are the two habits worth building; everything else is dragging a slider.

Day 7 compared levels and curves, which handle color a different way. Tomorrow, Day 9 is about Select Subject and getting a clean selection in the first place.

Quick Reference: Keys, Menus and Settings

• Select the objectObject Selection tool, click the object
• Recolor itAdjustments > Hue/Saturation; the selection becomes the mask; move Hue
• Target the colorMaster dropdown > nearest range (Yellows, Greens, Blues), then the eyedropper on the color
• Protect other areasClick the mask, B, D, X for black; right-click to set hardness
• One blanket colorTick Colorize; mask with G, Black to White, Linear
• Before and afterShift-click the layers, Cmd/Ctrl + G, toggle the group’s eye icon